This is an extension to the Unity Editor that allows you to create random space scenes with a single mouse click. You can also customize filters to create the mood you want for your game. Instead of using a skybox, this extension assembles a complete scene by selecting random textures and meshes to form a background that renders behind your normal camera. This way you get unique scenes for your game and you conserve memory space in the process. You also get space particle effects, local and infinite asteroid fields, space ship prefab, demo scenes, and much more.

You can also visit the Space Unity site which contains more details, screenshots, videos, and tutorials: http://www.spaceunity.com

I'm happy to see the positive response =) A lot of hours went in to this one so it's exciting to finally see it getting close to release.

@MarigoldFleur: Not fully decided the price yet, but the introduction price will probably be set to $50 for a limited period of time. It's hundreds of textures ranging from 512x512 to 4096x4096 and a whole bunch of scripts, meshes, prefabs, particle effects, tutorials etc. - so I'm hoping to set a fair price on it.

@Daniel: The planets have a subtle atmosphere shader effect now, but only shading the planet sphere itself around its edges. I hope to be able to create a smooth haze/external atmosphere shader/effect, that's in my road map, although it's not possible to do it like I have with the local stars as they are entire particle systems rather than mapped spheres.

I'd be happy for more feedback as well - any hints on what a decent price for a package like this would be worth to you would also be much appreciated.

Your video is perfect to attract customers who can't be disappointed with your asset, I think. Congratulations !!!

6R

Click to expand...

Yay, I'm happy with that reaction! I hope so too. Going to tidy up the package today and finish the documentation for a release shortly. I'll also have to do some more tutorials, but that'll have to wait until night-time when the kids are a sleep as they make way too much noise in the background

The documentation is nearly finished now so I'm very close to release.

Today I also created some additional demo scenes that are included in the package and I thought I'd share a sequence I just recorded where all the spaceships (with slightly different roll/yaw/pitch rates) take the same keyboard input which turned out to be quite a sweet little battle scene =)

The Camera Script is set to a mode called "Spectator Follow" and movement it frozen a few times using a hot-key. Obviously this camera mode isn't very useful during game-play, but it has a nice cinematic effect - maybe for cut scenes and replays etc.

This is awesome looking. I JUST happen to be working on a space strategy game and these scenes would look awesome as a back drop to the action. I was totally bummed that it wasn't out yet after I saw the tweet about it a week ago. Good Job, Good luck with it and I'll be picking up a copy once I hear it's released.

WOW! Just this weekend I was working on custom sphere with the normals facing inward then using Mudbox to paint the inside with reference images such as nebulous, stars, and such. Today I see this. This looks absolutely incrediable. Using modular sphere section for each texture is ingenious. This is high on my to buy list. Fantastic job!

Magnificent!! I recently downloaded some cool pictures from the Hubble telescope, and I can say the graphics in this kit are quite realistic. I also love the workflow. Well done

Click to expand...

Cheers! The content in Space Unity is designed to appeal for both sci-fi games with a degree of realism. The system quite happily accepts custom textures as well which can be tagged and idexed by the editor extension if one wishes to use custom art or actual photos.

WOW! Just this weekend I was working on custom sphere with the normals facing inward then using Mudbox to paint the inside with reference images such as nebulous, stars, and such. Today I see this. This looks absolutely incrediable. Using modular sphere section for each texture is ingenious. This is high on my to buy list. Fantastic job!

Click to expand...

thanks! I used to draw static skyboxes but I was excited as I came up with this approach since games will all look different and it reduces distribution size dramatically for games with many different space scenes since content can be reused. literally billions of combinations, but I think my static skyboxes might take a sales hit

This is awesome looking. I JUST happen to be working on a space strategy game and these scenes would look awesome as a back drop to the action. I was totally bummed that it wasn't out yet after I saw the tweet about it a week ago. Good Job, Good luck with it and I'll be picking up a copy once I hear it's released.

Click to expand...

Great to hear! I added volumetric atmospheres for the initial release and I'm updating the editor window to support some customization of the atmospheres. Shouldn't be too long and I'll update this thread once I've uploaded the package.

Very Very nice.
But, do not forgot to add a sort of "Earth Solar System Auto Build". This will avoid buying another package for it and preserve the coherence of some projects.

My own project starts in our Solar System before we go... elsewhere. Coherence

Not fully decided the price yet, but the introduction price will probably be set to $50 for a limited period of time. It's hundreds of textures ranging from 512x512 to 4096x4096 and a whole bunch of scripts, meshes, prefabs, particle effects, tutorials etc. - so I'm hoping to set a fair price on it.

The package has now been finalized and tested in both Unity 3.5 and 4.0. All documentation is complete and the package is being uploaded to the asset store as I write =) It will need to pass the review process before it becomes available. The introductory price has been set to $50 for a very limited period of time.

I'm just about to upload a new version of the asset package, the first one was rejected due to its size. Apparently there is a 500MB limit for packages in the asset store and my release was over 900MB.

I didn't want to reduce the resolution of the planet textures (because you may really want them at 4096x4096 for single close range planets) - so instead I had to break out planets which will be released as an expansion package. The original release will now have 12 high resolution planets, 2 of each climate type, and the once visible in the promo video are included (plus other ones.)

I am planning to release many expansion packs in the future anyway so it's probably good to keep the package sizes reasonably anyway.

While the updated package is being reviewed, you might be interested in this video if you are into the mobile market. I tested it on my Android (Galaxy S3) phone - you can find some details in the video description at YouTube.

Quick question, this just puts a background, these aren't actual "physical" objects that can be navigated to and around, right?

Like let's say I wanted to put 10 planets in orbit around a star, could this do that?

Click to expand...

At this stage the main purpose is to create backgrounds (to replace static skyboxes) and it's not intended as fully functional solar systems planet simulations etc. The editor extension uses multiple hemispheres to create a virtual sphere containing galaxies and nebulas.

The planets and moons are 3D objects that live inside the sphere and they operate on a different scale from your normal game-play objects. Saying this, the space camera script allows you to set a relative speed (default is zero so you never move) so you can actually fly around the planets if you want. This works best if you want slight movement within the scene because if you travel at high speed you'll also approach the galaxies which look odd.

So in short: you can set up planets to orbit a star and fly around them - but scales won't be real life and it will look strange if you fly around fast in the planetary system since the nebulas and galaxies will move as well.

This can all be solved by introducing another camera though. If the nebulas and galaxies and distant stars are rendered by one camera (always static) and the planets are rendered by a second camera. I'll put it in the roadmap to support this if there is interest for it.

Meanwhile, the web scene is not in the release because I used a separate project with compressed textures etc. But I can definitely include a GUI-based scene and camera switcher. In the next update which will coming quite soon. I'm right this minute about to create a new Web Demo since the current one doesn't have the volumetric atmospehres and I'll be sure to include the web demo in the next update.